GURPS Prime Directive
GURPS Prime Directive is a Powered by GURPS set in the Star Fleet Universe, a variant of the canonal Star Trek Universe. Tech Levels Both the 3rd and 4th editions of GURPS Prime Directive used the 3e Tech Scale. More over they highball the TLs. The Original Star Trek series (TOS) provides a lot of details regarding Federation Technology. The following used the lowest TL needed to have the advancement. 3e TLs TOS Transportation TL: TL9. The transporter is the oddball at TL 14. TOS Weapons & Armor TL: All over the TL9-11 range. Starships and Stunners are 9, disrupters are 10 and force screens, tractors beams and antimatter missiles are 11. TOS Power TL: Antimatter is 10. TOS Medicine TL: Mccoy comments that Federation medicine can deal with every organ of the body but the brain ("Menagerie" and "Spock's Brain"). The Compendium II notes brain transplant as a TL 8 (likely late TL 8) development. Similarly there is no evidence for and plenty against TL 9's panimmuity in Kirk's time ("Requiem for Methuselah", "For the World is Hollow and I have Touched the Sky", "Journey to Eden"), no evidence of any form of braintaping until the TNG era, and Longevity is another TL 9 development missing from Kirk's time ("Deadly Years"). There is one TL9 hiccup in all of this; Mccoy uses something akin to Suppend on Krik in "Amok Time" which is before "Spock's Brain" and "For the World is Hollow and I have Touched the Sky" (where large amounts of medical knowledge was gained). So the conclusion from all this is in Kirk's time TOS Medicine is 8 with one 8+1 "Triox compound". Scotty indicates that the Star Trek timeline deviated from our own because transistors were the technology of choice for spaceships in the 1990s"Space Seed" and there is no reference to computer chips. So TOS is TL(6+3) to TL(7+2) but only if you ignore "Piece of the Action" and Worlds of the Federation. 4e TL In the GURPS Tech Level scale large hunks of TOS tech wound up as superscience: FTL travel, transporter, force-field technology, disintegrators (Phasers) and their crude time travel. This removes these from figuring out what the TL is as superscience can be any TL. It is hinted in the episodes "City on the Edge of Forever"Spock builds a crude computer able to interface with his Tricorder with TL6 equipment which would be -5 for true TL9. and "Piece of the Action"Kirk states that the Iotians (TL6 thanks to books left 100 years ago when they were at early TL5), could take part a Federation communicator, learn how the transtator in it worked, and in a few years get to Federation levels of technology. Besides, if the Federation was at TL9 the Iotians would be at a staggering -15 to dismantle the communicator without breaking the transtator, another -15 to understand how the transtator works, and -15 to make their own transtator. That is beyond silly. Worlds of the Federation established the Iotians were able to recreate Federation technology using only their understanding of the transtator. that TOS is closer to a mixture of TL6^ and TL(6+x)^ then true TL9. If one is generous this makes TOS TL(6+3)^ (transtator TL6^ Medicine: TL7^) References Category:GURPS Books Category:3rd Edition Category:4th Edition Category:Licensed worlds Category:Powered by GURPS